Avenue
“Often in novels, the streets of Paris are mentioned in detail. They tell of an event that happened right there, in that spot of Paris and not another. The place name is stated in full without quick abbreviations, and sometimes others follow. And they are all equally important.
It is not about precision and nor is it a negligible detail, they seem more like obligatory steps that cannot be omitted because it would be a small betrayal of the story and the city.
At first, this detail is not clear to the reader, maybe they have never been to Paris, but they are happy to carry on reading. But yes, of course, how can you not have been to Place I don’t know to have a coffee or a rendez-vue in rue something else, even if you live somewhere else and speak a language that is not French?
These places live in the memory of the writer and, dragged into the narration, they colour the story with a precise and gentle sound, close to reality. And they do this with a particular strength, to the point of making you believe that you, the reader, have been there too, maybe you didn’t want to or you were distracted and you never thought about the names of the streets.”
A while ago, more or less from the first lines, I had stopped listening to that monologue written on an anonymous sheet, for a reason I am unaware of.
The person reading it was wearing a fur collar on their shoulders, I thought it was beautiful but out of season. So, I got up and left café something, in square something else, to go to my appointment.